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Emerging Diseases Associated with Deforestation

Deforestation is defined as the permanent removal and destruction of forest lands due to agricultural, human colony expansion, and resource acquiring ventures. According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, roughly 18 million acres of forests are cut down every year, a section about the size of South Carolina. Some of the hardest hit areas are Brazil, the Republic of Congo and Southeast Asia. Deforestation brings with it numerous side effects: elevated levels of greenhouse gases spurring climate change, fragmentation of species habitats, soil erosion, and decreased ground water stores.

Besides these ecological influences caused by deforestation, another threat aimed at the populations nearest to those affected areas is developing: emerging diseases. The topic of this paper is deforestation in association with emerging diseases that have surfaced over recent years in tropical rainforest areas. Emerging diseases is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a disease that is initially introduced to a society of people or an older disease which has reemerged with escalating occurrence in a population or geographic region. Two of the diseases that will be discussed are West Nile Virus and Malaria, their transmission patterns, accelerated infection rate due to deforestation, and possible remedies to this issue. Figure 1 shows major emerging diseases over the past 30 years globally (Morens).

Figure 3: Forest loss trends in the Amazon.

Global Forest Watch and the University of Maryland have constructed incredible interactive maps that allow the user to see where in the world global deforestation is taking place and at what rate. This tool is a very enlightening and fun tool to show what areas are in great need of conservation efforts and possible hot zones of emerging diseases (Global Forest Watch, Global Forest Change).

Conservation efforts can be done on multiple levels to protect not only the forest land, but also the populations that are at risk in areas of heavy deforestation. Some solutions discussed by Gomez, et al., propose attacking the problem in three areas: conservation of single species, large area or eco-system level conservation, and engaging public awareness (Aguirre). All of these involved a small segment of planning that could help in the protection of large parcels of land that could best benefit species that are threatened most by deforestation. Whether this is accomplished by focusing on a selected species or an area of land that is deemed important through focus groups, all land that is procured would save habitats from agricultural and colonization efforts. One or all of these changes in ecology would directly affect interaction between parasite and host, causing a shift in disease transmissions that would normally be magnified by an increase of deforestation. Though these ideas are not widely accepted or have a particular recovery plan set aside for the parasites that are known for harboring the disease vectors, little is known of the part the parasite plays in the grand scheme of things in the biodiversity realm (Gomez). Yet, as history shows us, when the disease vectors are maintained within their own habitat with their typical hosts available, carte blanche, the spread of these diseases can be relatively contained.

With the continuous need to supply the population enough room and food to live comfortably, there comes a cost. Every year, deforestation encourages the release of new insect species that are vectors for viruses which can spread new diseases to the populous and create new emerging diseases. With the proper environmental conservation rules in place, along with a plan of optimizing the current farmlands to maximize yields, we can limit the amount of land getting stripped that creates the practical utopia for mosquito breeding and reduce the vector for these often deadly diseases.

Work Cited